Five decades after President John F. Kennedy’s assassination, President Barack Obama reflected Friday on the Kennedy family legacy.
And as the nation remembered the tragic day, Obama said “thankfully” his own safety does not weigh heavily on his mind.
“It’s not something I think about,” Obama told ABC’s Barbara Walters in an interview set to air in full next Friday. “Mainly, because we’ve got a Secret Service that does such an outstanding job every single day.”
“Obviously, tragedy reshaped the Secret Service in many ways, but they do an outstanding job, and it’s, thankfully, not something that I spend a lot of time thinking about.”
Obama spent the 50th anniversary of Kennedy’s death in quiet commemoration at the White House, observing a moment of silence at 2 p.m. ET and meeting with volunteers for Peace Corps — the international service organization established by Kennedy in 1961.
“When you think about the legacy of the Kennedy family, it has been part of all of modern American history, and it’s been an incredible legacy, but JFK in particular, I think, captured the idealism, the ability to imagine and remake America to meets its ideals, in a way we haven’t seen before or since,” Obama said.
